In What Ways Did the Nature of Resistance in the Caribbean Change in the 19th and 20th centuries?
Hello Guys,
Below is an essay that I wrote in December 2019. It touches on modern Caribbean history (c. 19th and 20th centuries), which is the history that I hope to specialise in when I eventually go on to do my Masters Degree. This essay is only 3,500 words, and there’s only so much you can cover with that. But I have left the citations in so you can look up the sources I used too if you want to learn more.
I hope you guys enjoy learning as much as I did!
INTRODUCTION
From the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865 to the Grenada Revolution in the 1980s, the modes of resistance in the Caribbean shifted in a variety of ways. It is worth pointing out that the results of the Morant Bay rebellion revealed the failures of the British emancipation policy. Historian, Abigail Bakan, asserts that the most significant change in the politics after emancipation was within emancipation itself. Not the formal structure or content of the government. The post emancipation period was a failure because, as events on Caribbean islands such as Jamaica will highlight, despite the former slaves now being included in the government process as free citizens, they were only free “to a very limited extent”.[1]
This paved the way for future campaigns of resistance in the Caribbean area. For instance, in transforming the very meaning of freedom and political thought, the Morant Bay rebellion called for a new vision of workers’ rights that went far beyond the Caribbean islands. It profoundly expanded the implications of human and workers’ rights, which is later evident in the 1930s, when the British Caribbean labour revolts transpired. Through the examination of British Caribbean colonies such as Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and more, this essay will delve into how the nature of resistance changed from acts of violence to political thought. I will also argue that the reasons behind Afro-Caribbean people resisting changed too. Initially, Caribbean people [in Jamaica] began to fight for the freedom to self-govern, now, in the early 20th century; they mainly fought for the workers’ rights that they wanted to be implemented. Finally, the Grenada Revolution, which began in 1979, conveyed another drastic change in the nature of resistance. Maurice Bishop led a campaign that focused on reconstructing the political and education system in Grenada, in order to expand the island socially and economically. Consequently, this essay aims to evaluate how much the nature of resistance in the Caribbean modernized by the end of the 20th century by exploring three key cases: the Morant Bay rebellion in 1865, the British Labour Revolts of the 1930s and the Grenada Revolution (circa 1979–83).
MORANT BAY
Morant Bay rebellion is often seen as a key moment in a longer pan-Caribbean history of the 19th century. There is a continuous debate on whether this event was an organized, premeditated rebellion or merely an inevitable riot that was the result of the tensions that had been building up amongst Afro-Jamaicans on the island. Historians such as Thomas Holt, Abigail Bakan, and Douglas Hall have engaged in different spectrums of this debate. With Holt and Bakan agreeing that if organization, preparation and political consciousness where requirements for distinguishing Morant Bay as a rebellion or riot, then this event was indeed a rebellion.[2] Meanwhile, Douglas Hall conceded that, because the event relied on a “peasant army”, it was poorly organized, therefore Morant Bay was just another local impromptu riot.[3] These perspectives are key to the discourse on the nature of resistance used in the 19th century and how this would change by the end of the 20th century because it requires historians to evaluate the methods used by Paul Bogle (Jamaican activist and national hero) and other Afro-Jamaicans when they held out against the Colonial Office at Morant Bay in St. Thomas-in-the-East, Jamaica.
During the 1850s and 1860s, Afro-Jamaicans petitioned, rallied, demonstrated and occasionally engaged in violent actions to express their political, religious and [especially] economic grievances. Holt argues that it is irrelevant to discuss whether Paul Bogle intended to spark a rebellion on October 11th, 1865. Once the rebellion was approved, a “preconceived, though ultimately abortive plan of action ensued”.[4] Guerrilla warfare was one of the methods used during the rebellion. Leading the rebellion, Bogle instructed his men to construct a “rude field-work” by felling large trees which were supposed to build barricades across the roads.[5] He also instilled Jamaican nationalism to the fellow rebels by telling them that the island belonged to them, therefore, they would take possession of it.[6]
Unfortunately, not all descendants of the ex-slaves resonated with this Jamaican patriotism in the way that Bogle hoped. The legendary Maroons created obstacles for those rebelling and the extents to which the rebellion would be a success. Despite being descendants of escaped ex-slaves, the Maroons (unlike the other Afro-Jamaicans) had established colonies in Jamaica. In 1795, the Maroons had also battled against the British for their freedom, and upon winning, they were bound by treaty to help their former enemies in putting down any future slave revolts in 1831–1832. The contrast between the Maroons and Afro-Jamaicans is clear and evidenced by how the Maroons were more than ecstatic to put down the any slave revolts.[7] It was this ruthlessness that left Afro-Jamaicans both fearful and respectful of the Maroons. Further limitations to the guerilla campaign that Bogle faced was caused by natural conditions such as heavy rain, which washed away the rains and bridges that the regular British troops relied on. As a result, the rebels were unable to mount their guerilla campaign to its full potential. Hence, I argue that the success of any uprising would depend on whether those revolting would be welcomed as an ally or foe. In Bogle’s case, he naively believed that he had made allies of the Maroons after visiting them occasionally, yet it was the Maroons who later captured and hanged Bogle in October 1865 on behalf of the British government. In addition to this, the then Governor, Edward John Eyre responded to the rebellion by forming a council of war that comprised of members of from all shades of politics to present a diverse front, so he could garner support for his imposition of a crown colony government.[9]
Morant Bay proved to be one of, if not the first revolt in Jamaica that was in aid of the working rights of the poor. Although the Colonial Office (by influence of Governor Eyre) pushed the narrative that the Afro-Jamaicans were degraded peoples who were merely rebelling because they were uncivilized individuals, the policies that had been reinforced in Jamaica during this period suggests otherwise. Rather, it was because the Jamaican economy fell into distress that the Afro-Jamaicans were driven to rebel. To say that the British and local government were entirely to blame for the declining economy in Jamaica would be vague. First, we must explore the wider context, which is that ever since the American Civil war had cut down the sugar industries (a major source of supplements to homegrown provisions), this drove the price of imported foods to spike unprecedentedly.[10] It did not help that this occurred at a time when Jamaican workers were least able to pay. Meanwhile the Union blockade of Southern ports simultaneously raised the prices of cotton good and clothing, thus leading to the further decline of the Jamaican economy, which in turn left estate workers and peasants hard-pressed in a struggle for survival on the island. As this essay will go on to evaluate, what was occurring in Jamaica in the 1860s is intricately linked and similar to what would occur on other Caribbean islands in the 1930s — which would ultimately spark a series of revolts.
Holt concedes that as the newly reformed political system proved to be less responsive in the 1850s and 1860s than in previous years, so were the white elite’s response to the Jamaicans’ plights about such policies.[11] Designed to restrict the Afro-Jamaicans’ means of survival, the Colonial Office created policies that banned the Afro-Jamaicans from squatting on vacant Crown lands and/or abandoned plantations to raise their own foods.[12] One of Bogle’s lieutenants, James McLaren maintained that the high taxes expected of Afro-Jamaicans, combined with the lack of land given to them were unfair. How could they be expected to pay tax with no land? This is why McLaren insisted that the white elites should give the Afro-Jamaicans land so that they could make their own living.[13] Of course, both Bogle and McLaren were aware that Governor Eyre and the Colonial Office were never going to give the poor the change that they desired. Just as much as Bishop was aware in the early 1980s that change would have to come from within Grenada to break from any post emancipation policies. Bogle & McLaren’s tactical thought processes only strengthens Holt’s initial argument that Morant Bay was an organized and politically thought out rebellion.
Albeit displaying some similar violent tactics to the Haiti Revolution, the Morant Bay rebellion also exerted features of modernity by way of its organization. This was an event that demonstrated how the failures of the West Indies emancipation resonated with and helped sustain the rise of a “virulent” official racism.[14] Thus, the events that preceded and succeeded the rebellion shaped and focused the racial thought of both the white British and the Afro-Jamaicans. The rebellion revealed the racial stereotypes that ran throughout the late 19th century, this evoked ideas of modernity through social mobility and equality. Thus, harbouring the worldview that anyone (Afro-Jamaicans in this case) could be acculturated if they willed it. In short, as Henry Taylor argued in his 1833 abolition plan, only those former slaves who had assimilated certain internal controls could be granted the right to self-govern. I thereby argue that assimilation and acculturation were, in this context, features of modernity. Although the Afro-Jamaicans did not achieve their full goal of self-government, nor did they gain full workers’ rights for the poor, the Labour Revolts will illustrate that the persistency of the Afro-Jamaicans and other Caribbean islands paved the way for new labour statutes in the 1930s.
THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN LABOUR REVOLTS
As this essay has established, Morant Bay was revolutionary for sparking debates about workers’ rights, however, the British Caribbean labour revolts of the 1930s went further by igniting future activism for labour politics. Trinidad & Tobago significantly revealed that whilst little had changed in terms of how the British authorities treated unskilled workers unfairly by exploiting black labour, the methods (e.g. strikes and disturbances) used to resist certainly alternated since the 1860s Jamaica. Furthermore, the Italo-Ethiopian war that had begun in 1934 illustrates that new reasons to resist emerged during this time. The war revealed that the Afro-Caribbean workers’ struggle for economic justice was a blend of labour politics and racial consciousness. This differs to the Morant Bay rebellion which was a fight for self-government in Jamaica. Furthermore, as Adam Ewing contends, the Labour Revolts of the mid 1930s was a politics that owed parts of its articulation and most of its persistence to Garveyism. Notwithstanding the fact that this new labour politics surpassed Garveyist labour organizing, it still relied on Garveyist tropes of racial solidarity as opposed to Paul Bogle’s tropes of nationalism during the 1860s. Consequently, the series of strikes that began on June 19th, 1937 in Trinidad convey that different forms of resistance were developed.[15]
It took three days for the workers to go through to the oilfields, sugar plantations, and towns before they arrived in Port of Spain on June 22nd, 1937. This was a pivotal moment in how the British authorities responded to Afro-Caribbean people taking control of their labour. Because, as Ewing concedes, it was in this moment that the British authorities (e.g. the colonial secretary, Howard H. Nankivell) realized that economic slavery could not continue as it had in Jamaica, Trinidad and other Caribbean islands since the emancipation period had begun.[16] It is worth mentioning that both the British and the Afro-Caribbean became aware of the importance of black labour to the British Empire’s success. Consequently, when black labour politics came into action in the 1930s, the British authorities were forced to finally make changes, however, they did this by placing repressive statutes (The Habitual Idlers Ordinance of 1918 and The Seditious Acts & Publications Ordinance №10 of 1920). Since the British authorities in Trinidad could not control the carnage inflicted by the strike alone, they had to call in British warships for back up — which arrived on June 22nd and June 23rd, 1937. Ewing further concedes that this response to the strikes in Trinidad only highlights which confrontation tactics were used as a product of the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression. For instance, pitting the island’s Afro population (the majority of which were poor and/or disenfranchised workers of colour) against Trinidad’s white and powerful oligarchies only heightened the racial tensions between the two groups.
Earlier in 1932, St. Kitts became the first of the Caribbean islands to officially erupt as a result of the social upheaval caused by economic slavery. However, unlike the strikes that occurred in Trinidad & Tobago in 1937, historian, Richard Hart argued that this eruption was “spontaneous and unorganized”.[17] Guyana and Jamaica were some other Caribbean islands that showed early warnings of disturbances emerging in 1935. Unskilled labour workers in Guyana targeted several sugar plantations, meanwhile, the port workers in Jamaica focused on striking in pout-port towns.
Prior to 1918, trade unions were illegal in all the British Caribbean colonies despite mainland British trade unions being exempt from the same statute that restricted the Caribbean area. Consequently, local statutes such as Law 15 of 1839 in Jamaica were placed to ensure that participation in such combinations was a criminal offence.[18] It was evidenced by the outcry across the island, that this legislation, which was initially designed to prevent the emancipated slaves (1830s) from combining as free men to obtain better wages, was still in full force in the 1930s, despite the former slaves now being integrated into society as citizens. This brings into question why no prosecutions were instituted against the organizers of the unions of skilled workers who had formed in Jamaica during the first wave of working-class activity. Hart explains that one of the key reasons for this is that the strike was not initially perceived as a threat because the methods used were affiliated to the American trade union movement rather than the British. Furthermore, the island employers were confident that they could easily defeat their employees’ attempts to organize effectively.[19]
Activist, Elma François points out that the greatest irony about the restrictions placed to prevent the Afro-Caribbean peoples from striking, is that the British authorities still expected West Indian men to serve the Empire and fight in the wars.[20] Ewing harmonizes this when he discusses the correlation between the series of strikes in the 1930s and the grievances of Caribbean people of colour that had been caused by the Italo-Ethiopian interwar.[21] Though revolutionary, the British Caribbean labour revolts were still an extension of the Garvey movement. However, this is not to dispute its stark contrast to the Morant Bay rebellion because the labour revolts relied on a type of activism that did not require or include violence.
THE GRENADA REVOLUTION
Meanwhile, the Grenada Revolution, which occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a groundbreaking event that depicted modern modes of resistance because this was the first time that something like this had occurred in the Anglophone Caribbean. Where the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865 and the British Caribbean labour revolts of the 1930s had been directed at the white British authorities who refused to allow Caribbean islands to self-govern or be paid fairly for their labour, the Grenada Revolution differed because it was an internal and external resistance. However, the fact that the revolution resisted internally was unintentional. This merely occurred as a result of the internal leaderships of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) breaking down following the assassination of revolution’s leader — Maurice Bishop. Nevertheless, David Scott likens the significance of the Grenada Revolution to the Haitian Revolution of 1804 and the Cuban Revolution of 1959 because it was generationally historic.[22] This essay will convey that the leadership of Eric Gairy’s Grenada United Labour Party contributed to the downfall of Grenada and the beginning of the revolution led by the NJM.
In spite of its collapse and destruction, the Grenada Revolution — led by what Scott referred to as the Marxist-Leninist party (NJM) — will be remembered for successfully and “forcibly toppling the repressive and tyrannical regime of Eric Gairy” in 1979.[23] Since the 1950s, Gairy had dominated Grenadian politics for a long period of time due to his charismatic persona and how he confronted the British colonial authorities in the early years. Similarly to Maurice Bishop, Gairy demanded better working conditions for poor, largely agricultural workers. Gairy even organized demonstrations and strikes, which inspired the burning of the most hated estate houses. However, he failed Grenadians when he showed himself to be a “corrupt and openly self-aggrandizing” politician, who felt inclined to rule Grenada by patronage whenever necessary.[24] At times, he would inflict fear and intimidation on his peers if it was necessary for him to rule the country.
Consequently, Bishop and the NJM felt that they had no choice but to end Gairy’s tyranny by igniting a revolution that would soon be an unprecedented symbol of the possibility of breaking with the colonial and neocolonial Caribbean past. However good intentioned the reasons behind Bishop and the NJM’s proclamation of the new People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) party were in 1979, there is no denying that their methods (a revolution) were controversial and could be likened to that of a dictatorship.
However, Bishop is still regarded as a national hero. He was aware of the importance of Grenada taking control of its own education system, so that the future generation(s) could grow up socially aware and capable of developing the Grenada land (which Bishop argued was the island’s greatest asset).[25] It is worth discussing how, once in power, the NJM/PRG faced a series of internal and external problems that left a severe impact on the structure of the party leadership, as well as the aftermath of the revolution. Firstly, the bomb blast that killed 3 schoolgirls and injured a number of people in June 1980 at Queen’s Park, St. George’s was a “graphic indication” of the lengths to which the revolution’s political enemies were prepared to go to put an end to the movement.[26]
It is no secret that the US President at the time, Ronald Reagan was one of the powerful enemies of the People’s Revolutionary Government. Reagan actively blocked foreign aid, he fomented destabilization and refused diplomatic recognition. Lastly, he planned an invasion on Grenada, something that Bishop was eager to prevent from happening. Unfortunately, when the People’s Revolutionary Government and the New Jewel Movement was dismantled in October 1983 (following Bishop’s assassination), Reagan was the first to invade Grenada — thus unravelling all the work that the NJM had done during the revolution.
CONCLUSION
The methods used to resist clearly changed between the 19th and 20th centuries, as did the reasons for resisting. The events surrounding the Morant Bay rebellion highlighted how the nature of resistance transformed from acts of violence in 1865 to political thought in both the 1930s and 1980s. Whilst Morant Bay and the British Caribbean labour revolts are useful for revealing the failures of the British emancipation policies, it is such failures that drives Bishop and the NJM to break with the colonial and neocolonial Caribbean past when they sought to reconstruct the education system in Grenada.
[1] Bakan, Abigail, Ideology and Class Conflict in Jamaica: The Politics of Rebellion (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990), p. 71
[2] Holt, Thomas C., ‘The problem of freedom: race, labor, and politics in Jamaica and politics’ in Jamaica and Britain, 1832–1938 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), pp. 300–301
[3] Douglass Hall Free Jamaica, 1838–1865: An Econ History (1959), p. 250
[4] Holt, Thomas C., Jamaica and Britain, 1832–1938, p. 301
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid, p. 302
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid, p. 303
[10] Ibid, p. 263
[11] Ibid, p. 264
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid, p. 301
[14] Ibid, p. 307
[15] Ewing, Adam, “Caribbean Labour Politics in the Age of Garvey, 1918–1938,” Race and Class, Vol 55, no. 1 (2013), pp. 20–24
[16] Ibid, p. 24
[17] Hart, Richard, “Labour Rebellions of the 1930s.” in Caribbean freedom: society and economy from emancipation to the present, edited by Hilary Beckles and Verene Shepherd (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle., 1993) p. 370
[18] Ibid, p. 374
[19] Ibid
[20] Francois, Elma, ‘Speech in her Self-Defence at her Sedition Trial.’ in The Birth of Caribbean Civilisation, edited by O. Nigel Bolland, (Kingston: Ian Randle., 2004), pp. 331–335.
[21] Ewing, Adam, Race and Class, Vol 55, no. 1 (2013), pp. 23–24
[22] Scott, David, ’Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice’ (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), p. 20
[23] Ibid, p. 15
[24] Ibid, pp. 16–17
[25] Bishop, Maurice, Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and its Overthrow, 1979–1983, edited by Bruce Marcus and Michael Taber (NY: Pathfinder Press, 1983) p. 392
[26] [26] Scott, David, ’Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice’, p. 16
